Facebook privacy is a steaming pile of unicorn poop

OK, I can’t actually verify the validity of unicorn poop, having not yet seen one with my own eyes, and I can’t personally attest that they don’t excrete a sparkling rainbow-colored swirl. But I’ve known since I was 10 that the fat man in the red suit is a total hoax.

I mean, really. Even a child with the IQ of a radish can consider the logistics of flying reindeer (that have no wings, mind you) pulling one roly-poly dude in a sleigh filled with ONE — count ’em — ONE bag that holds enough toys for all the children in the world, and they will all be delivered in one evening.

Utter B.S.

Just like the notion of Facebook privacy.

Come on, people. If you’re shocked to discover that Facebook not only compromised but sold your privacy and personal information, just exactly how naive are you, and B), maybe you shouldn’t trundle out into the world without a chaperone. Also, FYI, C) Santa isn’t real.

It’s not just Facebook, my friends… it’s Google, it’s Safari, it’s Amazon… it’s all of it. They’re all watching what sites we visit, what we search, what we click on, and gathering that information to parlay it into profit. Or power.

Did you think it was merely a bizarre coincidence that you just searched for backyard chicken coops on your browser or on Amazon, and suddenly your Facebook sidebar is littered with ads for chicken-related things? The internet giants… they talk. They share our information. And, they’ve been doing it for years.

This became glaringly obvious to me when we got a new computer at the Express office. Because I’m mostly the only one using that computer and mainly just for office work as opposed to searching for column information (and man, does that result in some wacky stuff popping up in my Facebook sidebar), its browser history was pretty much pristine.

Until that one slow afternoon awhile back, when my work was caught up and things were really slow, so I decided to search for the one thing that would make my life complete: red cowboy boots.

Not only must they be red, they must also come in a women’s size 10EE, which apparently doesn’t actually exist in the cowboy boot world. Ergo, my search was fruitless and I must resign myself to plain old brown boots. Men’s. Wah. However, my browser hasn’t give up so easily. I can’t go online on that computer without being bombarded by ads for red cowboy boots. My homepage, SFGate.com, has two rows of cowboy boot teasers above where the news stories begin.

Hey — ya gotta have priorities.

So, if you’ve ever searched for anything online, Google and Amazon and Facebook and Safari have already logged and categorized that information. Besides your searches being monitored, if you’ve ever done one of those fun, dumb little Facebook personality quizzes, you pretty much handed your information to whatever entity was behind it.

Back in the early days of Facebook, these quizzes seemed harmless, and who amongst us doesn’t need to know “Which Character on ‘The Office’ Are You?” (Pam) or “What is Your True Spirit Animal” (owl). Just good fun, right along with Farmville, the most grotesque waste of time since watching paint dry, and yes, I did it too.

As for the quizzes, when they started notifying me that by participating, I’d be granting access to all my personal information, contacts, photos and posts on Facebook, I’d give them a big fat “nope.” But many of my Facebook friends didn’t, took the quizzes, and thereby handed my information over as well. But, at least they know which Game of Thrones character they are now. So worth it.

But, there’s no point being bitter or angry. What’s done is done, even though I’m surprised that anyone would grant that sort of personal access to an unknown entity. But also, it’s pretty silly to get all high and mighty about other people giving my information away when the notion of “online privacy” is simply delusional. It’s right up there with glitter poop.

There’s no privacy online. Everything you share, post or say can be forwarded to 7,000 people with one mouse-click. Posting on social media is akin to walking around naked in public. Anyone and everyone can see what you’ve got, and many will exploit it however they can.

Wait, what? There are people online who are insufferable pricks?

I’m aghast!

Where is my unicorn! I must saddle up and fly away!

Oh wait. That’s Pegasus.

(Maybe I think about horses too much.)

As for Facebook, should we abandon it? What’s the answer? That’s exactly my point: There’s no answer. Your personal information is gone, gone, gone, baby, like a bird set loose from a cage. That bird has flown, and it ain’t ever coming back. Abandoning Facebook to protect personal information that’s already been compromised is like closing the proverbial barn door after the horses are loose: pointless.

That said, getting off social media has its merits. For one thing, think of all the things you could be doing besides staring at a computer screen. Facebook is a vortex: it siphons your time and, therefore, your life. Life isn’t anything but time… why waste it on Facebook?

But I get it, and I’m as guilty as anyone — sometime Facebook’s just good fun. But not when you’re embroiled in a whirlpool of drama and nasty comments because someone you used to respect posted something so outrageously asinine that you’re psychologically incapable of letting it go by.

Been there, done that, have the long list of “un-friends” to show for it.

Little by little, Facebook has become more aggravation than fun. Since it’s too late to save our information, let’s go back to only posting cat videos and photos of our food. Let the Russkies try and figure out how to throw our next election from that.

Paul Mattson

I used to write about ForePlay because cold wintry months of frozen terrain make it impossible to work outside and I have this irritating habit of waking up at 0300 every morning to check out the skirts on Fox News . My computer desk is in the middle between a big screen that swivels off my right shoulder and to my left is a panoramic view of the snowy mountaintops preparing for the inevitable sunrise … My shit zoo sleeps at my feet . One morning a friend of mine on Facebook decides to publish a newspaper and wondered if I could write golf columns and how should he go about doing this which , at first , distracted my attention from the skirts but caught enough of my attention to coach him along . Apparently its a big success after only 6 or 8 months but that is another story that I won’t get into now because we’re talking about Facebook … And I must admit its fun !

As Carolyn says ” I don’t know what all the hullabaloo is all about either ”
I need to change my title from Foreplay to Fore Play however because the hookers want me to fly them out to my neck of the woods from all across the World and I have to explain I’m talking about golf … I wonder how Tiger does it ?

I used to write about ForePlay because cold wintry months of frozen terrain make it impossible to work outside and I have this irritating habit of waking up at 0300 every morning to check out the skirts on Fox News . My computer desk is in the middle between a big screen that swivels off my right shoulder and to my left is a panoramic view of the snowy mountaintops preparing for the inevitable sunrise … My shit zoo sleeps at my feet . One morning a friend of mine on Facebook decides to publish a newspaper and wondered if I could write golf columns and how should he go about doing this which , at first , distracted my attention from the skirts but caught enough of my attention to coach him along . Apparently its a big success after only 6 or 8 months but that is another story that I won’t get into now because we’re talking about Facebook … And I must admit its fun !

As Carolyn says ” I don’t know what all the hullabaloo is all about either ”
I need to change my title from Foreplay to Fore Play however because the hookers want me to fly them out to my neck of the woods from all across the World and I have to explain I’m talking about golf … I wonder how Tiger does it ?